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Rise of State Power
The Rise of State Power lasted from about 1204 AD until 1337 AD. It began after the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. It then ended on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War between France and England. The 13th century was the apex of medieval civilisation in Europe. Robust population growth greatly benefited European trade. Her growing confidence was expressed most famously in the great Gothic cathedrals, but also in the founding of the first great European universities. Feudalism was in decline and modern nations began to take shape, with France emerging as the most powerful and culturally influential, and England despite upheavals with the most settled system of government. The kingdoms of Spain and Portugal reconquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, leaving the Muslims clinging on in Granada. The Italian cities flourished as prosperous, independent, and dazzlingly cosmopolitan city-states. At the same time, in the steppes north of China, the nomadic Mongol tribes were united under Genghis Khan, who launched a journey of conquest that blew up like a hurricane to terrify and slaughter half a dozen civilizations, and created an empire, stretching from the Sea of Japan and China, to the heart of the Muslim world and the doorstep of Eastern Europe. This vast transcontinental empire connected the east and west like never before, enforced under Pax Mongolica, allowing the dissemination and exchange of trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies across Eurasia. History High Middle Ages The 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries were for Europe a period of rapidly population and economic growth, which brought about great social and political change. Estimates suggest that a Europe of about forty million people in 1000, almost doubled to reach a peak of about seventy-three million around 1300. The explanation lies in agriculture. More food was obtained by bringing more land under cultivation and by increasing its productivity. Huge forests were gradually cleared, and some new land was reclaimed from marshy areas or even the sea. Agricultural practices improved: more systematic crop-rotation; a greater variety of crops notably beans and peas; a more efficient yoke for plowing; and more pronounced agricultural specialisation. Another innovation was the spread of windmills and watermills; they were already widespread in Europe by 1000, but put to more and more uses. A money economy was spreading slowly into the countryside, with more cash crops for growing markets. Some peasants benefited, with serfdom gradually declining, which would be further accelerated by the labour shortages resulting from the Black Death. Nevertheless, the increased wealth usually went to the landlord who took most of the profits. With more cash crops and trade, new market towns appeared, and the long established towns grew bigger: Paris may have had about 200,000 inhabitants in 1340; Genoa, Venice and Florence about 100,000; London about 80,000; and Ghent 60,000. The fastest growing cities in size and prosperity were in areas of specialised production, such as the fine textiles of Flanders or Tuscany, and the wine of Bordeaux. Ports too became the metropolitan centres of maritime trade, such as Genoa and Bruges. By 1300, all the major European cities were linked in a complicated trade network: the Italian city-states importing salt, sugar, spices, silks and other luxuries from the East to the rest of Europe; England exporting wool; Flanders exporting fine textiles; Germany exporting timber; the Rus exporting furs and beeswax; Norway exporting fish; and all the Mediterranean exporting wine and oil. For all Europe had achieved, her economic life was fragile and never far from the edge of collapse. Local famines were commonplace, and transport was crude with the roads having broken down since Roman times. A great and cumulative setback would occur in the 14th-century, with a series of widespread bad harvests around 1320, and the great demographic disaster of the Black Death. The building of an astonishing series of cathedrals remains one of the great glories of medieval European art. Gothic architecture gradually superseded the earlier Romanesque style by combining flying buttresses, pointed arches, and ribbed vaults. The style originated in France in the first half of the 12th century, and spread rapidly; notable examples include the Abbey of St-Denis (1135-44), and most famously of all, Notre-Dame de Paris (1160-1260). Architectural techniques were adapted to give an impression of lightness and height, with slender columns framing large colorful glass windows. It can be assumed that these virtuoso works of art had an awe-inspiring impact on medieval Europeans. Their architecture posed complex engineering problems and in solving them, the engineer was slowly to emerge from the medieval craftsman. Medieval technology was not in a modern sense science-based, but achieved much by the accumulation of experience. Yet the great wave of building was not only a matter of great cathedrals; the European landscape became punctuated by parish church spires rising above every little town. Perhaps even more important was the birth of a new institution for education; the universities. Bologna (1088), Paris (1150), and Oxford (1167) were the first of them; by 1400 there were fifty-three more. Though it could not have been foreseen, the importance of universities for the future of Europe was incalculable. Most were founded for the training of the clergy, but soon adapted to supply servants for the European monarchs. Their lectures were given in Latin, the language of the Church and the lingua franca of educated men. Law, medicine, theology and philosophy all benefited from the new institution. Philosophy had all but disappeared into theology in the Early Middle Ages, but now European scholars could read for themselves works of classical philosophy, often made available from Islamic sources. Aristotle enjoyed unique prestige; if the Church could not make him a saint, they at least treated his work as a kind of forerunner of the Christianity. Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) can be seen as both the crowning achievement of medieval philosophy, and a brittle synthesis of its fundamental weakness. Scholars would only begin to break free of the narrow prejudices of the Christian Church with the Reformation, paving the Scientific Revolution between the 16th and 18th centuries. Meanwhile, it would take a long time before vernacular literature could break through the barrier that restricted creativity to Latin. Dante (d. 1321) was one of the first to write of a serious subject not the Latin, with his allegorical work, "The Divine Comedy". Other authors would increasingly follow his example: Petrarch (d. 1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375) in Italy, and Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) and William Langland (d. 1386) in England. Nevertheless, even the greatest of these vernacular text could not reach a wide public until printing made large numbers of copies easily available. Rise of France The 11th-century marked the apex of feudal power in France. King Hugh Capet (987-996 AD) and his immediate successors were in truth hardly more than crowned lords, whose real authority extended little beyond the Paris basin. The realm was meanwhile a patchwork of feudal territories, and many of the king's supposed vassals were some of the strongest rulers of Western Europe: counts enforced the king's decrees only as they saw fit; and the king needed permission even to pass between duchies. Nonetheless, by a happy accident Hugh Capet's descendants would succeed to the French throne, father-to-son, without conflict for twelves generations until 1328. For the times, the Capetian family enjoyed remarkably harmonious relations, finding suitable roles for younger sons of the king to dissuade them from reaching for the French crown itself. Though this stable longevity the dynasty came to be recognised an illustrious and ancient royal house, socially superior to their politically and economically superior vassals, thus allowing the slowly but steadily extension of royal authority, until it eventually covered the entirety of their realm. Much progress was made under Louis VI (1108–37). For pious as well as realpolitik reasons, he was a fierce defender of the Christian Church. He encouraged French nobles and knights to go on Crusade, and gave patronage to several monasteries. He also intervened in quarrels between counts and local bishops, notably in Auvergne where he won the former's homage and the Church's support for a strong central government in France; among them Abbot Suger of St. Denis (d. 1151), one of the ablest statesmen of his day. Louis was the first French monarch to frequently use the policy of summoning his vassals to the court, and those who refused had military campaigns mounted against them; he could always count on the Church to excommunicate the offender. Meanwhile none of the king's rivals were more powerful than the Dukes of Normandy, both vassals of the French crown and kings in their own rights in England. The journey towards a cohesive French nation was in many ways a clash between two of Europe's greatest houses, Capetian and Plantagenet. Such a struggle was not just one of warfare and politics. Through decades of judicious marriages, King Henry II of English (d. 1189) had among his hereditary possessions Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Aquitaine, and Nantes. Thus the greater part of France owes allegiance not to Paris but to Westminster. Technically the English king was the feudal vassal of the French king in these territories, but between such powerful rulers this was little more than a nicety. The complex game of feudal dynastic marriages would throw up many such anomalies, culminating in Charles V Habsburg in the 16th-century, both Germanic Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. The Capetian Dynasty greatly extended its control in France during two reigns, of grandfather and grandson, who between them ruled for a span of nearly ninety years. The grandfather was Philip II (1180-1223). Almost the entirety of King Philip's was occupied with intrigue or battle against English territory in France. While Henry II sat on the throne, he skillfully played upon the bitter rivalry of Henry's sons to stir rebellion against their father. The power struggle continued during the reign of Henry's successor Richard the Lionheart (d. 1199). But Richard was no ordinary king; perhaps no statesman, but charismatic and a genius in war. Philip tried to exploit Richard's long absence on the Third Crusade to extend his territory, but once the great warrior king returned from the East, all these gains were subsequently lost. Philip had much more success against Richard's ineffectual younger brother King John of England (d. 2016). When Aquitaine erupt in rebellion against John, a disturbance secretly encouraged by the French king, Philip summon the king of England to the court as his feudal overlord. John refused to appear, so Philip used feudal pretext to confiscate all English lands north of the Loire River including Normandy; not only extending his control of France, but depriving John of easy access to the Continent. In retaliation, John spent the next nine years to building an anti-Philip alliance, that included the German Emperor Otto IV (d. 1218), Rhine Valley princes, and any French vassal that he could buy off, notably Flanders. The idea was for forces to converge on Philip from different directions, but when the southern attack was defeated at the Battle of Bouvines (July 1214), the entire campaign collapsed. Philip's victory was complete: England descended into the First Barons' War; Otto was overthrown; and the wealthy region of Flanders fell into the crown's hands. In addition to the former English territories and Flanders, through inheritance and intrigue Philip also attached to the French crown: Artois and Valois in the north; and much of southern France through a Crusade against the Albigensians, a radical Christian sect. Philip's son ruled for only three years, bringing to the throne the grandson was Louis IX (1226-1270), who came to the throne at the age of 12. His minority was almost inevitably plagued by revolts, but his mother was an effective regent and the rest of his reign was one of comparative peace. Louis' contribution was to stablilise the newly unified France, and transform it into a truly centralised kingdom. It was a task for which he was well suited. His reputation among his contemporaries for fairness, wisdom, and piety enabled him to rule as absolutely as he wished. A measure of this reputation is that the English accepted Louis as arbitrator in the Second Barons' Revolt between Henry III (d. 1272) and his nobles. Throughout his long reign, Louis worked tirelessly to bring his most powerful nobles to heel, especially by preventing their private wars that had long plagued the country. He further weakened the nobility by granting royal privileges and liberties to towns and cities throughout the realm. He even established cordial relations with the Plantagenet kings, after an attempt by Henry III of England to reclaim his lost territory was defeated in 1242. Louis ran an honest and efficient justice system: royal officials were empowered to travel throughout the realm investigating complaints about local officials; antiquated practices such as trial by ordeal were banned; the presumption of innocence was introduced to criminal procedure; and the right of appeal to the crown encouraged. The piety of Louis was also very much in the spirit of his time; after his death he was canonised, the only French king to be declared a saint. He created one of the most spectacular late Gothic churches, the royal chapel of Sainte Chapelle, which has one of the finest stained glass collections anywhere in the world; the design was highly influential and widely copied. And he took an active part in the Seventh and Eighth Crusades, dying in Tunisia during the second expedition. This Louis' successors presided over the most powerful kingdom in a rapidly developing Europe; rivaled only by England. And French culture was its glittering source of inspiration. She was the home of what was still the most significant monastic order, Cluny, though new innovations where now happening all the time, such as the founding of the Cistercians in France, and the Franciscans and Dominicans in Italy. In intellectual matters, Paris had a commanding reputation by the 12th century, through schools attached to the cathedral of Notre Dame and other monasteries in the city. In 1231, Pope Gregory IX (d. 1241) licenced Sorbonne University as an independent institution, and it soon became Europe's most famous centre of education; Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) taught there from 1257, considered one of the Church's greatest theologians and philosophers. France enjoyed a similar lead in artistic fields. The Gothic style of architecture originated there, many of the greatest examples of cathedrals were in French cities. Pioneering developments in sculpture and stained glass formed part of the same burst of creativity. Meanwhile, French literature invented and elaborated on the medieval theme of romance, in epic poems such as the Chansons de Geste and in the troubadours of Provence. The most significant reign of Louis' successors was that of King Philip IV (1285-1314). Intelligent and ambitious, he relied on talented civil servants to govern the kingdom rather than on his nobles, bringing royal power to the strongest level it would attain in the Middle Ages. Wanting an uncontested monarchy with compliant vassals, he provoked wars both with the kings of England, still his vassal as Duke of Aquitaine, as well as with ever-independent Flanders. Both were relatively successful, though they strained the resources and patience of his subjects as Europe entered a period of crisis with famines and the Black Death. The peace treaty that settled matters with England included the marriage of Philip's daughter to the future Edward II of England, which resulted in years of peace between the two kingdoms; although it would also produce an eventual English claimant to the French throne itself, and the Hundred Years' War. But, the most notable conflicts of Philip's reign was with Pope Boniface VIII. This was in many ways the culmination of the protracted medieval power struggle between Church and state, that had begun in imperial Germany with the Investiture Controversy of 1076, and continued with the Crusades and the Thomas Becket controversy in England. The war between France and England had interfered with papal plans for a Crusade, and Boniface became increasingly aggressive. The pair first clashed in 1296 over a kings right to levy taxes on the clergy in his realm, but Boniface was eventually forced to retreat when Philip responded with retaliatory measures. The feud reached its peak in 1302 when Philip arrested and convicted a papal legate on charges of inciting a revolt. From here, a series of escalating decrees and letters culminated in Philip convening an assembly of bishops, nobles and grand bourgeois of Paris in order to condemn the Pope; incidentally the first meeting of what would become the French parliament (Estates General). Boniface then retaliated by issuing the papal bull Unam Sanctam, one of the most extreme statements of papal supremacy ever made. Before he could excommunicated King Philip himself, French envoys, already in Italy working to undermine the Pope, took a bold step. In September 1303, they abducted the Pope, and held him prisoner for three days; the aging pope died a month after his release doubtless from the shock. The episode severely dented the prestige of the papacy, no subsequent popes would repeat such claims of papal supremacy. In contrast, Philip's power seemed enhanced. For much of the 14th century, French kings appeared to have the papacy in their pocket, almost literally. There were seven French Popes in an unbroken succession spanning seventy-three years. From 1309 these Popes were based not in Rome but on French soil, at Avignon. A few years later in 1312, Philip even forced the Pope to comply with his wishes to destroy the great order of the Knights Templars, to whom he was deeply indebted. This situation would eventually lead to the Great Papal Schism, in which for nearly four decades Europe had two Popes, occasionally three. Meanwhile, by the end of Philip’s reign, France was unmistakably the heart of Europe. Yet, just two decades later the early death of Philip's son Charles IV would usher in the first succession crisis in France for over three centuries, and set her on the path to the Hundred Years' War. Britain of the Plantagenets In the midst of the Crusading Age, the long-standing English habit continued of competition for the throne, and an equally enduring tendency emerged of bickering between royals and the Church. The direct line of William the Conquerors only lasted his two sons. When the only legitimate son of Henry I (1100-1135 AD) died in the shipwreck of the White Ship in 1120, the royal succession was thrown into doubt. Henry's solution was to compel the Anglo-Norman barons and senior clergy to recognise his daughter Maude (d. 1152) as heir. But no one was enthusiastic about accepting Maude as queen; no woman had ever ruled in her own right in either England or Normandy. Furthermore, her husband was Count Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou (d. 1151), a region in west-central France with a long history of rivalry with Normandy, and as the widow of Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, she had rather autocratic views on monarchy. On Henry death, there were many rivals for the throne, but a nephew Stephen of Blois moved fastest, crossing immediately to England and having himself crowned King Stephen (1135-1154) in Westminster Abbey within a month. The entirety of his reign was consumed by a bitter civil war with Maude; The Anarchy '''(1135-54). In his first years, Stephen faced minor revolts, and opportunistic Welsh and Scottish invasions. This escalated into a major rebellion in the south-west of England in 1138, under Maude's half-brother Robert of Gloucester (d. 1147). Nevertheless, most of the nobility remained loyal to Stephen until he was defeated and captured at the Battle of Lincoln (February 1141). Stephen was abandoned by many of his followers, and Maude was all set to be crowned, when Robert of Gloucester was himself captured. With little option, Maude agreed to swap captives. So the desultory war dragged on for many more years with neither side able to secure an advantage, while barons across the realm sought to settle old scores and expand their own power. The country descended into anarchy, causing widespread devastation. By the early 1150s, both the nobies and Church mostly just wanted peace, and pressured Stephen to the negotiation table. In 1153, an accommodation was reached whereby Stephen would retain the throne, but recognised as his heir Maude's son, Henry Plantagenet, passing over his own natural son. '''Henry II Plantagenet (1154-1189) was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to reassert royal authority over England, which had fallen in a state of lawlessness after the years of civil war. His success in this aim is the measure of his greatness. His first task was to demolish a swath of unauthorised castles that now dotted the realm, built by unruly nobles who were appropriately disciplined. Next, Henry restored, and in many ways improved upon, the standards of administration of his Norman predecessors: he strengthened the powers of the circuit judges in maintaining the law; settled land disputes through the judgement of 12 knights, a forerunner of trial by jury; encouraged more cases to came before royal courts rather than private feudal courts; and organised government into ministries which became more formalised and professional. All these measures continued the subtle shift away from feudalism, and towards a centralised English nation state. But England was just part of his vast realm, which Henry would have been justified in calling an empire. Through his own inheritance in northern France and that of his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (d. 1204), the greater part of France owes allegiance not to Paris but to Westminster. Although his French lands came under considerable pressure from Philip II of France (d. 1223), by the end of Henry's reign they were still intact. Meanwhile, Henry had eight legitimate children and to provide lands for his younger sons, gave his backing to the Norman conquest of Ireland (1169-1175). Meanwhile, since the Investiture Crisis of 1076, the power struggle between Church and state was one of the great issues of the day throughout Europe. Henry conceived what must have seemed at the time a neat solution to the problem; he appointed his trusted friend Thomas Becket (d. 1170) as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162. If he anticipated a compliant archbishop, he was quickly disabused. Becket vigorously defends ecclesiastical privileges, and rejected Henry's insistence that legal cases against clergy could be judged by the royal court just like anyone else. The quarrel escalated to the point that Becket fled the country in 1164 to safety in a monastery near Paris, but the squabbling continued with Henry harassing Becket's associates in England, and Becket excommunicating religious officials who sided with the king. By 1170, the whole Becket controversy was international embarrassment for Henry, and he took a more conciliatory tone. Becket returned to England in early December, but still refused to reinstate the bishops he had suspended. News of this prompted Henry’s careless and fatal question: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Four knights provided a literal answer. On 29 December 1170, they murdered Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The public and international outrage that followed made Becket a martyr and his tomb one of Europe's most popular pilgrimage sites; he was canonised a saint in 1173. Henry was forced to do a humiliating public penance at Becket's shrine, and concede on all his points on ecclesiastical control at least in the short term; with Becket out of the way, it later proved possible to negotiate most of issues between Church and state. Henry's son, Richard the Lionheart (1189–99), has left an indelible imprint on the English imagination as the ideal of a heroic warrior king. He spent almost the whole of his reign on military campaign, at which he was a genius. Perhaps wanting to make amends for his father's treatment of the Church, he was one of the leaders of the failed Third Crusade. The rest of his reign was spent actively defending his lands in France. But warfare was expensive, and in addition Richard was captured on his journey home from the east and had to be ransomed. He drained the treasury, placed a colossal tax burden on his subjects, and in his absence the country again fell into disarray. According to legend, it was during this time that Robin Hood, hid in Sherwood Forest and engaged in a spot of wealth redistribution. Thus he left his successor a very difficult legacy. During the reign of his brother, King John (1199-1216), the three problems lurking at the heart of the English monarchy came to a head: how did succession to the throne work; what were the limits on royal power when it came to taxes; and what was the balance of power between the king, the nobles, and the church. John had none of the military ability of his brother. By 1206, King Philip II of France (d. 1223) had used feudal pretext and a nephew of John's with a strong claim to the English throne, to confiscate all English lands in France north of the Loire River including Normandy. At least Richard had imposed harsh taxes on his subjects for successful wars. Then John got embroiled in a protracted quarrel with Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) over the right to select the Archbishop of Canterbury, during which he was excommunication for four years, further weakening his authority. By now, the discontent of his feudal vassals was reaching dangerous levels. In an attempt to stave-off civil war, John met with his rebellious baronsin in June 1215 at Runnymede, near Windsor Castle, with the Archbishop of Canterbury acting as a arbitrator. There he fixed the royal seal to the document that the barons place before him; Magna Carta. The document attempted to codify the rights and obligations of feudal society, and in doing so to define the limits of royal power; it promised new taxation only with baronial consent, protection from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and the protection of Church rights. However, claiming to have accepted the document under duress, John refused to comply with its conditions, sparking the First Barons' War (1215-17). John's death and the ascension of his nine-year-old son Henry III (1216–1272) brought a pause in hostilities, during which more moderate council prevailed. The 13th century saw a steady rise in population, a growth of prosperity in the towns, and the early development of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The loss of continental possessions focused the attention of the monarchy on England in a way that had not happened since 1066, and there began to emerge a much clearer English identity; for the first time the French were being described as foreigners. During Henry's minority, rather than a regent, there was a council made up of barons and bishops, which despite factional disputes brought a much needed period of stability. As he grew up, Henry learned to do what he was told, and that pretty much defined him as a king. Unfortunately for the barons, they would not always be the ones telling him what to do. Henry's wife, Eleanor of Provence (d. 1291), found it all too easy to manipulate him in order to promote her own family interests. Henry's rule and the queen especially became increasingly unpopular, and gatherings of barons at the royal court became increasingly regular and acrimonious from about 1238; the term parliament, from the French parler meaning "to speak", was increasingly being applied to such large gatherings throughout Western Europe. Into this tense situation came Simon de Montfort (d. 1265), a charming, ambitious, and morally flexible minor Anglo-French noble. He befriended the impressionable Henry, and married his sister to become the Earl of Leicester. Within a few short years, he’d transformed himself into a proper English nobleman and would lead the Barons in the next phase of their conflict with the kings of England. In 1258, when Henry desperately needed help to balance his royal finances, the barons forced him into further curtailment of the royal power known as the Provisions of Oxford: it created a fifteen-member privy council, selected by the nobles, to advise the king and oversee the entire administration; and the English parliament was to be held three times a year. Like his father, Henry rapidly backtracks on his commitment, prompting another civil war, the Second Barons' Revolt (1264-1267). In a brilliant engagement at the Battle of Lewes (1264), Simon de Montfort and the rebel barons won a resounding victory against a larger royal army, in the process capturing both Henry and his eldest son, the future Edward Longshanks. For a year, Montfort essentially took over the county, as leader of the privy council. In an attempt to garner wider support for his new form of government, he summoned a parliament in London in 1265, which included not only barons and bishops, but two knights from every county and representatives from every towns; the roots of the House of Commons, destined to become the more powerful of the two houses of parliament. These hints of a democratic future did not save Montfort. His enemies contrived to help Prince Edward escape captivity. At just twenty-six, Edward was already a formidable general. He rallied the royalist forces, and defeated and killed Montfort at the Battle of Evesham (1265), restoring his father to the throne. The thirty-five year reign of Edward I '(1272-1307 AD), nicknamed "''Edward Longshanks" due to his great height, contained many seminal moments in English history. He was in many ways the ideal medieval king, a gifted military leader who also enjoyed statecraft. He was also the first king to habitually speak English since the Norman conquest. Edward willingly confirmed the existing charters including Magna Carta, delegated much of the business of government to his privy council, and summoned parliaments on a reasonably regular basis, helping to establish it as a permanent institution. To some of these assemblies he continued Montfort's innovation of inviting representatives from the counties and towns, usually when he had pressing needs for funds. Edward was notable for his canny use of the gradually evolving parliament. In 1275, he negotiated a tax on the export of wool, which set his reign on a secure financial basis. Another source of royal income was the exploitation of England's Jews; after impoverishing the community, they were expelled from the country in 1290. Thus England now had something like a settled system of government, which maintained stability in the realm throughout his reign. Edward had his own reasons for wanting a stable government; his main interest in life was warfare, and he would spend much of his reign on military campaign in Wales and Scotland. The distinction between Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic '''Wales was formalised in the 8th century by the digging of Offa's Dyke in the 8th century. Somewhat like in Ireland, the Welsh petty-kingdoms were forever merging, through the usual process of warfare and marriage, towards centralised power, only for it to dissipate again; for instance during his reign, Rhodri Mawr (d. 878) was widely accepted as king of much of the region. When the Normans claimed England in 1066, William the Conqueror set up feudal barons, the Marcher Lords, along the Welsh border to secure his kingdom. The area of the March varied as the fortunes of the Marcher Lords and the Welsh princelings ebbed and flowed. The Welsh petty-kingdoms were as often at war with each other, but from time to time a leader would emerge with something approaching hegemony over all Wales, who could gain concessions from the English kings. Deheubarth in the south under Rhys ap Gruffydd (d. 1197) was powerful enough to reach an accommodation with Henry II in 1171, that brought peace to the region for a while. Gwynedd in the north-west under Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (d. 1282) adopted the title "Prince of Wales", and by 1267 had forced Henry III to recognise him as such, as a vassal and tribute payer to the English crown. But this was the peak of national dignity for medieval Wales. Llywelyn's claims in Wales conflicted with those of Edward Longshanks. For his part, Llywelyn seemed almost to go out of his way to affront Edward: he declined a summons to do homage, and married the daughter of Simon de Montfort, the usurper of his father. In 1277 Edward moved decisively against the Welsh upstart. Two English armies converged on Wales: one in the south to seize the harvest, where most Welsh princelings reached terms with Edward; and one in the north, marching into Gwynedd itself. Llywelyn was soon forced to accept the Treaty of Aberconwy (1277), where he retained only western Gwynedd. The rest of Wales was now to be administered by English agents, a role which they fulfilled with such brutality that it prompted a widespread uprising in 1282, headed by Llywelyn. Edward reacted as forcefully as before, with another invasion of Wales, this time a full-scale war of conquest. Llywelyn was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge (December 1282), and conquest was completed with the capture of his son Dafydd in June 1283. The subjugation of Wales was emphasised by granting the title of Prince of Wales to Edward's eldest son, and by the construction of a series of imposing castles, which are still the glory of the northwest coast of Wales. Overawed by these clenched stone fists, Wales remained relatively quiet for a century, until the one last attempt to keep the dream of Welsh independence alive under Owain Glyn Dwr. Trouble with Scotland flared up shortly after Edward's suppression of the Welsh. The end of any medieval dynasty was always an invitation to chaos. The death of the last of the MacAlpin kings of Scotland in 1034 had prompted a protracted period of civil war between two descendants via the female line of the royal family; made famous by Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Malcolm III Dunkeld (1058−93), who emerged from this struggle, founded a dynasty of able Scottish rulers. They introduced new Anglo-Norman systems of government and the first recorded Scottish coinage. Relations between the Scottish kings and their Norman neighbours were complex. For several generations the nobles of Scotland and England intermarried, and quite a few had lands on both sides of the border. At the same time, the border between the two kingdoms was a region of almost constant warfare. The two kings themselves vied within an uneasy and ill-defined feudal relationship in which neither side prevailed, until matters were brought to a head by a vacancy on the Scottish throne. In 1286 Alexander III Dunkeld died, leaving only an infant granddaughter as heir. King Edward I of England immediately set about arranging her marriage to his own infant son, the future Edward II; the intention was that the bridegroom would rule over both kingdoms. However the young queen died in 1290, before matters could be arranged, leaving some 13 claimants for the vacant Scottish throne. With the risk of civil war, the Scottish nobles agreed to allow Edward to arbitrate. Between the two strongest claimants, John Balliol and Robert de Brus, his choice of John Balliol (1292-96) received widespread assent. However, over the next few years Edward used the concessions he had gained to systematically undermine both the authority of King John and the independence of Scotland. Scottish resentment was expressed in 1295 when they formed an alliance with France, ushering in both the enduring Auld Alliance (1295-1560) and the First War of Scottish Independence (1296-1328). Edward’s invasion of Scotland in 1296 was swift and brutally effective. Within a few months, King Balliol was a prisoner in the Tower of London, and the sacred Scottish coronation seat, the Stone of Scone, traveled south to a new home in Westminster Abbey; it remained there until 1996. Scotland was humiliated, but only briefly. Seriously short of funds, Edward could not follow-up his conquest with the building of costly castles, as he had done in Wales. Enter arguably Scotland’s most tragic hero. An uprising erupted in Scotland in early 1297, led by William Wallace (d. 1305) and other Scottish nobles. When Edward sent more forces north, Wallace confronted them at the Battle of Sterling Bridge (September 1297). Holding back his troops and enticing the English across the narrow bridge over the River Forth, he attacked when about half were across; nearly all the English on the northern bank were slaughtered or drowned. The victory enabled Wallace to briefly rule Scotland as Guardian of Scotland, on behalf of the imprisoned John Balliol. But the situation brought Edward himself north in person in 1298, and at the Battle of Falkirk (July 1298), he avenged the humiliation of Stirling. English and Welsh archers inflicted devastating casualties on the massed ranks of Scottish spearmen, in an early example of the power of the longbow, half a century before its more famous deployment at Crécy. Wallace himself escaped but resigned as guardian, and vanished from history until his betrayal and capture in 1305, when he was hung-drawn-and-quartered at the Tower of London. Meanwhile, Edward had continued campaigning in Scotland, and with his capture of Stirling Castle, the last major rebel stronghold, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered. But in 1306, Robert the Bruce (1306-29), the son of the main claimant rejected by Edward in 1292, made a grab for power. Killing his main rival, he rallied the Scottish nobles behind him, and had himself crowned King of Scotland. Hostilities resumed, with the English once again winning the initial encounters and briefly forcing Bruce into hiding. But he soon resumed a guerilla campaign against the English, and with each minor victory, more and more Scots flocked to his banner. They were further encouraged by news of the death of Edward I in July 1307. Under the weak and ineffectual Edward II of England (d. 1327), Bruce's success continued, capturing one English stronghold after another. With the key fortress of Sterling Castle under siege, Edward finally led a large army north to confront him at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314). But Bruce had chosen his ground well. During the opening skirmishes, the English tried to force they way onto the high ground of the marshy area, but were repulsed; famously Bruce was briefly caught in the open, but killed a famed English knight in single combat. Thus in the battle proper the next day, the English were hemmed by boggy turf and rivers, and then thrown into utter disarray by the aggressive tactics of the Scots. This victory essentially established Scottish independence. In the years after Bannockburn, Robert continually raided south across the border into England, and in 1315 opened a new front in the war, sending his brother Edward Bruce to stir-up rebellion in Ireland. Meanwhile, Edward II marched north again twice with large armies in 1319 and in 1322, but achieved little. By 1328, the English were ready to come to terms, and Scottish independence was formally acknowledged in the Treaty of Northampton (1328). But the English instinct to meddle in Scottish affairs proved hard to resist; the Second War of Scottish Independence (1332-57). When Robert the Bruce died, bringing his five year old son David II (1329-1371) to the throne, they first encouraged the son of John Balliol to stake a claim to his father's throne. When that failed, the English invaded themselves in 1333 with considerable success. By this stage, the war had merged with the Hundred Years War (1337-1490). With the English distracted in France, David drove then out of Scotland in 1341, and went further invading northern England in accordance with the Auld Alliance. There he was captured in 1346, and spent a decade imprisoned in London, until the English, desperately short of funds, ransomed him back. Meanwhile in England, during the weak and ineffectual reign of Edward II (1307-1327) the unruly mood of the nobles returned. The central theme of his reign was violent factionalism to control the impressionable king. Edward's reign was first dominated by Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322), who for a time united the barons in opposition to the king's unsuitable favourite, Piers Gaveston (d. 1312), who is widely assumed to have been Edward's homosexual lover. Parliament twice succeeded having the young man banished from the kingdom, but each time he was recalled, until the barons had him murdered in 1312. Meanwhile, with widespread famine effecting much of Europe from 1315, Lancaster kept a tight rein on the royal expenses, and Edward II eventually turned on them, with the help of a baronial faction led by Hugh le Despenser (d. 1326). Despenser's habit of using his position to enrich his own family, made Edward's rule increasingly unpopular, not least with his own wife. In 1326, Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer raised a rebellion against Edward, and forced him to renounce the throne in favour of their fifteen-year-old son, Edward III (1327-77); Edward II would die in captivity less than a year later, almost certainly murdered, according to the gory rumour by skewering with a red-hot poker. For four years, Mortimer and Isabella ruled in the young king's name, but Edward III declared his independence in 1330 in a most forceful manner. With a small band of trusted men, he took Mortimer by surprise at Nottingham Castle and had him executed. Thus England had a strong king again, and during his long reign, spanning half a century, Edward III contrived to rule without any major confrontation with the barons, in part thanks to a shared cause; the Hundred Years' War. Norman conquest Ireland "800 years of English rule in Ireland" began during the reign of King Henry II of England (d. 1189). Little had changed in Gaelic Ireland since Brian Boru's short-lived attempt to forge it into a united political entity in the early-11th-century. It remained a constantly shifting patchwork of petty-kingdoms, who in turn paid homage to several regional over-kingdoms. The journey to the Norman conquest of Ireland (1169-1175) began when Diarmait Mac Murchada (d. 1171), the ambitious and ruthless regional-king of Leinster, was overthrown in 1166. A desperate ruler seeking the help of a powerful alliy is hardly unusual in history, but Diarmait's decision to appeal to Henry II would change the destiny of Ireland. Henry had long been plotting to get his hands on Ireland in order to provide lands for the younger of his eight legitimate children. In fact, Pope Adrian IV (d. 1159) had granted him a Papal Bull in 1155, which authorised the conquest as a means of bring the still independent Celtic Church to heel. With Henry's backing, Richard de Clare (d. 1176), better known as Strongbow, landed an Anglo-Norman army in Ireland near Wexford in May 1169. They quickly conquered a substantial part of eastern Ireland, including the port-cities of Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin, where as promised Strongbow married Diarmait's daughter. Diarmait death a few months later removed the last impediment to yet another great Norman land-grab, as in southern Italy and indeed England itself. Henry himself visited to Ireland in 1171, as much to keep an eye on the independently-minded Anglo-Norman lords as to campaign. Four years later the Treaty of Windsor (1175) was agreed with the Gaelic petty-kingdoms. It confirmed his conquests and acknowledged its limits to Leinster, and established the English kings as the ill-defined overlord of the whole island. But it meant little to the Anglo-Normans, who continued to expanand their territory continuing for decades, against occasional Gaelic Irish counter-offensives. The high point of the Anglo-Norman rule in Ireland was in the 13th-century. By the end of the centuries, Norman settlements, characterised by baronies and feudal law, were to be found throughout much of the country, culminating in the establishment of an Irish Parliament in 1297, paralleling that of its English counterpart. But a series of events would expose the fragility of English rule. The first was the invasion of Ireland in 1315 of Edward Bruce (d. 1318), brother of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce (d. 1329). A year after Bannockburn (1315), Robert sought to open a second front in the First Scottish War of Independence, and no doubt to rid himself of a potential rival. Edward landed in Ireland with 6000 Scots, and all the Gaelic-Irish and a few Anglo-Normans rallied to his cause of ending the rule of their English overlord. Although the uprising ended with Edward's defeat and death at the Battle of Faughart (October 1318), in the chaos, great swathes of land had been taken by the Gaelic Irish that would never be recovered. Thirty years later in 1348, there was an even more disastrous arrival in Ireland, the Black Death. It struck the denser-populated Norman settlements far harder than it did the native Irish. During the remainder of the 14th century there was a remarkable revival of Gaelic Irish fortunes, with large parts of Ulster, Connaught, and the midlands recovered, and the Normans increasingly restricted to the south and east. This was matched by a great flowering of Irish language, custom, and culture that once again came to dominate the island. Gradually the Normans assimilated with Irish society, becoming known as the Old English famously described as "more Irish than the Irish themselves." From 1367, the parliament in Ireland tried to legislate against this, banning Irish dress and intermarriage, but with little effect. The Norman lords may have pledged allegiance to the English king, but in truth they were loyal only to themselves. And with the crown distracted by the Hundred Years' War, Ireland was simply not a strategic priority. But that dramatically changed with the War of the Roses in the later 15th-century. The Normans of Ireland had supported the House of York, and two pretenders to the English thrown launched their bids against Henry VII from Ireland. Henry VIII would launch a much more asserted effort to subjugate Ireland. Spanish Reconquest During the early Reconquista, the Christian kingdoms of northern Spain squabbled with each other as often as they fought against the Muslims. The 11th and 12th centuries saw a bewildering series of merges and divisions from which emerged four stable kingdoms: Aragon, Castile, Navarre and Portugal. By 1179, the kings had signed the Treaty at Cazorla, establishing zones of operation for the reconquest of the rest of the peninsula: Portugal was to concentrate on the west coast, and Aragon the east coast. The decisive phase of the Christian reconquest began with the crushing defeat of the Muslims at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). It was followed by further conquests of Cordoba (1236 AD), Valencia (1238 AD), and Seville (1248 AD). After this Christian thrust to the south, only the southern tip of the peninsula remained in Muslim hands as the Kingdom of Granada. The high mountains of the Sierra Nevada made it difficult to conquer. In 1246, Granada made a treaty of coexistence with Castile, agreeing to pay a large annual tribute. And so they were left relatively free to enjoy a civilised existence for more than two centuries, enjoying the final flowering of the Muslim culture of Spain. The result can be seen in the palace fortress Alhambra completed in 1358; its restful courtyards of Moorish arches and playful fountains now seem the epitome of the Muslim culture of Spain. Nevertheless, this Muslim enclave was an affront to the conscience of neighbouring Castile; Granada was finally conquered in 1492. Fragmentation of Germany Germany power reached it peak with Henry VI (1165-97). He took control of the strategically important island of Sicily, and dreamed of becoming the head of an empire to rival that of the Byzantines. Following his death, however, the German empire went into severe decline. His heir was only three years old, and the power hungry German magnates began contesting imperial succession. During the 12th and 13th centuries, while France, England, France, Spain, and Portugal were developing strong centralised monarchies, Germany moved in the opposite direction. Many different factors weakened the cohesion of imperial Germany. One factor was the paradox of an elected feudal overlord, which goes back to the last Carolingian ruler of Germany in the early 10th century. Unlike the monarchy in France and England, the Holy Roman Emperor was elected by the great German nobles. Although sovereignty frequently remained in a dynasty, it was not always the first-born son. Thus the position depended on a network of negotiated alliances, which in brutal reality of feudal politics meant concessions to keep voters on side. Another factor was the seemingly never ending struggles between the Emperors and the Popes, that began with the Investiture Controversy and continued to sap the imperial authority. Emperor Frederick II (1220-1250) was excommunicated no less than three times, in a quarrel prompted by his acquisition of Norman southern Italy and Sicily through a dynastic marriage. After Frederick’s death, the empire lost any real political meaning, and the title of Holy Roman Emperor was valued only for its prestige. This unwieldy extension of the German empire was also a source of weakness within Germany itself. Between 1254 and 1273, the German dukes failed to elect any emperor and for the next century the electors chose kings from several different families. Not till the coronation of Charles IV in 1346 was there the start of another dynasty; the House of Luxembourg. And only under the Habsburgs from 1415 did the title of Holy Roman Emperor become essentially hereditary again, though its powers remained honorary at best. Dynastic politics may have had the effect of making the Germany less cohesive, but the energies of the German people remained potent. The fragmented political structure had certain advantages for the larger German towns. In many ways, they became city-states similar to their contemporaries in Italy, but more numerous and more inclined to group together in large trading alliances. A document of 1422 listed seventy-five free German cities including: Aachen, Cologne, Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Regensburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm. As part of a general pattern in Europe, Germany enjoyed a rapid growth in prosperity, helped by the intensification of long-distance Baltic trade as the major trading towns were drawn together in the Hanseatic League, under the leadership of Lübeck. At the same time, the German people achieved a marked expansion of the realm. This was achieved in the steady push eastwards into the less developed and heavily forested lands occupied by the Slavs and Prussians. The German advance was gradual, achieved first by peasant settlement, and then the granting of feudal rights and bishoprics in newly occupied territories. By these means the ancient German duchies were expanded: Swabia absorbed much of what is now Switzerland; and Bavaria extended spasmodically over Austria. Only the Prussians significantly resisted German attempts at conquest and conversion until the arrival of the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. Princely Rule in Italy The commercial revival was most conspicuous in Italy, where trade with the outside world was resumed, above all, by Venice. In that great commercial centre banking for the first time separated itself from the changing of money. By the middle of the twelfth century, whatever the current state of politics, Europeans enjoyed continuing trade not only with Byzantium but with the Arab Mediterranean. Beyond those limits, an even wider world was involved. In the early fourteenth century trans-Saharan gold from Mali relieved a bullion shortage in Europe. By then, Italian merchants had long been at work in central Asia and China. They sold slaves from Germany and central Europe to the Arabs of Africa and the Levant. They bought Flemish and English cloth and took it to Constantinople and the Black Sea. Medieval Italians invented much of modern accountancy as well as new credit instruments for the financing of international trade. The bill of exchange appears in the thirteenth century and with it and the first true bankers we are at the edge of modern capitalism. Limited liability appears at Florence in 1408. The 11th centuries had been a time of growing trade for the city-states of Italy, especially for the Maritime Republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. By 1082, all four had large fleets of ships for their Mediterranean trade networks. They were strengthened through conflict both with the Fatimid Egyptian fleets from north Africa, and with each other. Venice and Genoa soon became the most powerful, controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire; both had merchant colonies in Constantinople. The fortunes of Italy’s medieval cities increased considerably with the First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader States, growing rich through the revival of trade and pilgrims with the East. As the maritime republics prospered, so too did inland city-states such as Florence and Milan. Their strength and confidence was demonstrated in 1176 AD, when the northern cities united to drive-off an invasion by Emperor Barbarossa, who sought to end their nominal independence from the Holy Roman Empire. The Italian city-states would play a crucial role in the development of financial services, devising the main instruments and practices of banking. By the 13th centuries, Italy was vastly different from feudal Europe north of the Alps; a melange of political and cultural elements. Thanks to her favourable position as an intellectual crossroads between East and West, Italy's rich culture would ultimately spur the great intellectual and artistic movement of the Renaissance. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the increasingly prosperous and independent city-states of Italy developed new forms of government. Most gradually fell into the hands of extremely effective city councils; notably Venice, Milan, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Siena and many others. These were effectively oligarchies, first dominated by nobles but then increasingly by the wealthy middle classes. These well-heeled families soon turned their attentions from business rivalry to political struggles, in which each aimed to gain control of government. The practical solution to this constant feuding was a powerful chief executive. By the end of the 12th century, nearly all the north Italian cities appointed a powerful mayor or Podestà to run the city's affairs; usually a nobleman from another district who was appointed for a fixed term, rarely more than a year. But once the machinery of individual rule was in place, a more permanent and even perhaps hereditary princely ruler becomes a likely option. The Visconti of Milan were an early example; Matteo Visconti was mayor from 1287 to 1322, his son succeeded him, and the post was declared hereditary in 1349. Other cities followed suit. Nevertheless, Florence remained technically an oligarchy until the Medici became hereditary princes in 1532, and self-perpetuating oligarchy of Venice preserved power until the 18th century. Meanwhile, competition and warfare between the city-states was constant and bewildering, with alliances always in flux. From the 13th century, the citizens preferred to employ foreign mercenary companies or Condottiere to fight their battles, rather than go to war themselves. One of the first was the Great Company, numbering some 7,000 heavy cavalry and 1,500 infantry, and first led by a German knight, Werner von Urslingen. Engagements between these armies were often elaborate rituals, in which little harm was done except to the pockets of their employers. The mercenary companies would eventually die-out by the late 15th century, as mounted knights became relics of a medieval past with the change in the art of war to infantry and guns. Gradually Venice, Florence, and Milan emerged as regional powers and absorbed their neighbours. Venice was long the most successful of them, with the widest international trade network. In Florence, prosperity was based on the wool trade and finance; its coinage, the florin, became the dominant currency in international trade. Milan extended her control over Pavia, Cremona, and Ticino area of Switzerland, turning it from a city-state into a minor European power. Trade brought both growth in population and prosperity, that gave rise to a more sophisticated and commercialised culture, as well as the emergence of early organised capitalism. These dynamic, independent-minded city-states were dazzlingly cosmopolitan, with Armenians, Turks, Greeks, and Germans, as well as Jewish communities and other groups persecuted elsewhere in Europe who found refuge and work here. They proved fertile ground for the intellectual and artistic explosion that would take place across northern Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries; the Renaissance. The only other area of Europe with such dynamism was Flanders and the Netherlands; it hard not to see parallels because of the early role her textile towns played in the Renaissance. Since the 10th century, much trade connected Flanders to England’s wool industry, and by the 12th and 13th century cities like Ypres, Bruges and Ghent bloomed as major cloth-trading centres. Muslim World Disunited Russia Mongolian Invasions The high plateau of Mongolia is unrivalled as a region from which successive waves of tribesmen have emerged to prey upon more sedentary neighbours; the original homeland of both Turks and Mongols. The speed and success of the Mongols can be attributed to the military genius of one man; born Temujin but known to history as Genghis Khan. By the time of his death, he would be the greatest conqueror the world has ever known; conquering more land in 25 years that the Romans did in 400 and more than twice as much land as Alexander the Great. Until the rise of Temujin, the Mongols were little more than a loose confederation of rival clans of pastoral nomads migrating with their flocks across the high plateau of Mongolia according to climate. They had long demanded the attention of Chinese governments, generally played off one clan against another in the interests of its own security. Reminiscent of the Huns, they seemed to have been bred for mounted warfare, using the bow from horseback with devastating effect. Temujin was born into a clan with a history of rule; his great-grandfather Khabul Khan was the first known Khan of all the Mongols. When he was eight, his father, the chieftain of his clan, was poisoned in a feud, and Temujin and his family became outcast. These early traumas drove him to extremes of bitterness and self-assertion. Temüjin gradually proved his mettle as a warrior, attracting a growing number of followers. Crucially he went against custom, executing the leaders of enemy tribes while incorporating the remaining members into his clan, and then promoted people purely on merit rather than relatives. By 1205 he had vanquished all rivals, including his former close friend Jamuka. The following year, he called a meeting of representatives from every part of Mongolia, and was acknowledged as Genghis Khan (1206-27), which roughly translates to “Universal Ruler" of all the Mongols. Having united the steppe tribes, he suppress the traditional causes of tribal warfare: abolished inherited titles; forbade the enslavement of any Mongol and kidnapping of women; and made livestock theft punishable by death. In 1209, Genghis Khan launched his first campaign outside of Mongolia against China, during the Song Dynasty (960-1234). The Song was a smaller empire, coexisting with numerous tribal kingdoms within the Great Wall. By 1215, the Mongols had conquered China north of the Yellow River including Beijing, largely through ravaging the countryside until the rulers submitted and presented tribute. The Mongols were uncommonly tolerant of religion. They themselves were shamanists believing in nature spirits, but since their religion was inexorably linked to the land from which they came, they had no interest in conversion; Genghis Khan's followers would include Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. They were also remarkably adaptable. From the Chinese, they adopted a writing system and became experts at siege warfare. This was only the beginning. In 1219, Genghis Khan went to war against the sultanates of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and plundering the cities of the Crimea and southern Russia. Several different factors explain the devastating success of Genghis Khan and his armies. The traditional riding skill of the nomads of the steppes plays its part. With stirrups now a standard part of cavalry equipment, the agility of the horsemen was greater than ever, galloping close to release a hail of arrows and wheeling away again. Horsemanship also plays its part in the system of communication which enabled fast moving Mongol cavalry armies to coordinate their strategy over vast distances; riders galloping between well-equipped staging posts could travel more than 200 miles in a day. Pigeons too were trained for the purpose. However, the single most important element was a ruthless use of two psychological weapons, loyalty and fear. For nomadic tribesmen, those who resisted bravely but lost would be rewarded and encouraged to join the Mongols against the rest of the world; only cowardice or treachery was punished. For towns the choice was simple, fight or surrender; for those that resisted and lost, all the inhabitants were herded outside and brutally massacred for public display. Only skilled workers such as engineers and metalworkers were usually saved. Most historians estimate the numbers they killed to be in the millions. Terror stalked ahead of a Mongol horde like an invisible ally. Usually the citizens need no persuading to open their gates. When Genghis Khan returned to Mongolia in 1225, he controlled a huge swath of territory from the Sea of Japan to the Caspian Sea. Nevertheless, he didn’t rest for long before turning his attention back to northern China, which had refused to contribute troops to the western conquests. In early 1227, a horse threw Genghis Khan to the ground, causing internal injuries. He pressed on with the campaign, but his health never recovered and died some months later. Genghis Khan had already dealt with the problem of succession, with each of his four surviving sons to hold a vassal kingdom, and his second son, Ogedai, to become the Great Khan; this was confirmed by two years later by a great Mongol assembly. Ogedai Khan (1229-41) would turn his vast inheritance into an empire. Genghis Khan spent his life in ceaseless campaigning, but his son preferred to direct several operations simultaneously from his splendid new capital city at Karakorum. Mongol armies continued to make inroads into China including Korea, though he softened the Mongol policy somewhat to preserve the country for the wealth and skills of its inhabitants. That decision would not only give the Mongols access to the Chinese weapons needed to eventually conquer the technologically superior southern Song, but also gain knowledge of governmental techniques to be rulers as well as conquerors of China. In 1236, the Mongols moved northward, pouring into Russia. The small Russian principalities were ill-equipped to resist; Moscow was sacked in 1238 and Kiev in 1240. The Rus princes were largely given free-rein in their own territories as long as they delivered sufficient tribute. The Mongols would dominate the region for nearly two centuries, where they were known as the Golden Horde; Russia only reemerged in the late 14th century. Catholic Europe was given a taste of Mongol prowess by the defeat a joint German and Polish force at the Battle of Legnica (April 1241), and in the same month against the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohi. The Mongols summered on the plains of Hungary, and only left Europe because of the arrival of the news of the death of Ogedai Khan. In the generation of Genghis Khan's grandsons, Ogedai, Güyük, and Möngke, the Mongol armies little more than nibbled at the richer regions of China, Persia and the Middle East. It was during the reign of Kublai Khan (1260-94) that the full attention of the Mongols was turned on China. To signalling his ambitions, the Khan moved his imperial capital to Beijing and announcing a Chinese name for his dynasty; the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). In 1276, Hangzhou, the capital of the surviving Song dynasty, fell to his armies, and three years later all resistance was suppressed. Kublai Khan was determined not to be an outsider in China. He adopted the Chinese bureaucracy, though employed notably more foreigners, including a certain Venetian explorer called Marco Polo, one of the first European to travel the Silk Road from Europe to China and document his experience; Il Milione (1300) contains many exaggerations and some curious omissions which probably indicates that some was based on hearsay. After nine decades, the Mongols were eventually ejected by the native Ming Dynasty. Meanwhile, never in history had there been such stability on the Silk Road as the 13th century, with the Mongols policing the whole route. While the Mongols weren't great at administration, but they valued trade because they could tax it, and they did a great job of keeping their empire safe. Merchants were always strong supporters of the Mongol regime. In fact the Mongols probably contributed to the ease with which the Black Death spread to Europe. While Kublai Khan was sovereign over a more extensive region than any previous Khan, his authority in the west was only nominal. The Mongol Empire would settle down into three distinct and increasingly independent regions: Kublai's realm of China and Mongolia; the Golden Horde in Russia; and the newly established Mongol realm in Persia and Mesopotamia. The Mongol campaign against Islamic Persia began in 1256. The region had been terrorised in recent years by the notorious Nizari Ismailis sect; known in the West as the Assassins. Yet this extremist sect met its match in the Mongols. One by one the mountain fortresses of the Assassin were taken, including the supposedly impregnable Alamut. By 1257, the Mongol horde pressed further to the west, into the even richer lands at the centre of the Islamic world. Baghdad was besieged and sacked in 1258. It is said that 800,000 of the inhabitants were killed, including the Caliph himself, who was kicked to death; thus ended the Abbasid Caliphate. The Mongols took Aleppo and Damascus the next year, and the coastal route south to Egypt now seemed open to them. Yet, in a turning point in world history, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut (1260); albeit a somewhat weakened Mongol horde distracted by the succession of Kublai Khan. After their remorseless half century of expansion, this battle defined for the first time a limits of Mongol power; Palestine and Syria were preserved for the Mameluke Dynasty in Egypt, and Mesopotamia and Persia remained within the Mongol world. Kubilai Khan was the last great Khan, and when he died in 1294 the fully Mongol Empire fragmented. Although the Mongols were conquerors of unparalleled skill, they were in all other respects a primitive people. They tended in different regions to lose their identity and adopt local customs: Chinese in the east, and Muslim in the west. Mongol power would eventually decline during the 14th century, and left little behind it. One other effect of the Mongol invasion, was to sufficiently weaken the Muslims in Anatolia, so that the remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Nicaea could consider retaking their home city from the Crusaders. In 1261 AD, just a few thousand Byzantine troops were scouting near the city, where they found the Crusader garrison away. Entering via an unlocked gate, they flung the few guards from the city walls, and seized back Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire would rule in Constantinople for almost two centuries, but the heart had gone out of the Byzantines, and they would remain isolated, weak, and in the end helpless against the rise of the Ottoman Turks. Category:Historical Periods